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Anti-infectives

New antibiotic on the horizon?

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 4, page 571 (2006)Cite this article

A pathway that has yet to be fully exploited for antibiotic drug discovery is fatty-acid biosynthesis. A key enzyme involved in this pathway is the β-ketoacyl-acyl carrier protein synthase FabF. To increase the chance of identifying a compound that selectively targets FabF, the authors engineered the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus to express antisense RNA against FabF. This renders the bacteria more sensitive to inhibitors of this enzyme, and so comparison of growth inhibition of the wild-type strain with that of the antisense strain enables the identification of genuine selective inhibitors of the FabF target present in the fermentation samples. This screen identified a potent antibiotic, platensimycin, which could otherwise have been overlooked in a conventional screening assay.

platensimycin looks to be a promising first step towards a new first-in-class antibacterial drug

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Wang, J. et al. Platensimycin is a selective FabF inhibitor with potent antibiotic properties. Nature 441, 358–361 (2006)

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  1. Nature Reviews Assistant Editor,

    Samantha Barton

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  1. Samantha Barton
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Barton, S. New antibiotic on the horizon?. Nat Rev Microbiol 4, 571 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1471

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